Vna Tip Homecare & Tip Hospice

ABOUT VNA-TIP
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Visiting Nurse Agencies (VNAs) were established more than 120 years ago. Because there were few hospitals to care for the seriously ill, the need for homecare nursing was critical. Families cared for their loved ones, neighbors and friends as best they could but credited the kindness, compassion and skill of nurses who came to their home as providing a lifesaving difference.

The hospice movement is both ancient and modern. Beginning as a form of comfort for travelers, hospice has been adapted as a philosophy of care, to ease the journey from life to death. Hospice was started in the United States in 1974 in Connecticut. Hospice became a Medicare hospice benefit in 1982.

Hospice is a specialized form of health care and is not a place. Hospice staff goes to the patient's home, wherever it may be. Its goal is to improve the quality of life that remains by focusing on providing palliative care for the patient and the family rather than attempting to cure the disease. Hospice care provides a special team approach to support the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of people who are in the last six months of life and are no longer receiving curative treatment. Today, as then, nurses who visit patients in their homes have become an important part of the healing process. Escalating medical costs and shortened hospital stays have brought new demand for the services of visiting nurse agencies.